News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-10-20
THE IRISH JAUNTING CAR.
An American Correspondents Anus
ing Experiences in Dublin.

The iaunting car is the great feature
of street life in Dublin. It is the pop
IlIar method of conveyance. 1t will
hold two people on each side besides the
driver. The regular fare for their use
is two shillings for the first hour and
eighteen pence for the next. You learn
this after you have paid all kinds OF
prices. These jaunting-car drivers are
perfectly merciless in their charges un-
less you make a bargain with them be-
fOrehand No matter how liberal you
may think you are in paying them, these
drivers always look as reproachfully at
you as if you were attempting to rob
them. The Irish drivers in the streets
of Dublin are the most reckless of any
I have ever seen. Their horses are
tough and wiry and are always driven
nearly on the dead run. At the slight
est opportunity the driver forces his
horse into gallop. AS the streets are
very uneven and badly paved riding on
iaunting car gives much more exercise
than ordinary horseback riding. The
first driver had overcharged me in such
a stupendous way that he could not keep
his face straight when he named his
avarice, he calmly lowered the price
himself and announced that he would
take so much. [ paid it to him, tell
ing him that I knew it was double his
fare After he had received it he burst
out in another roar. "You are right; it
is about double, but it isn't every day
we get chance" and then went off in
perfect convulsions of amusement over
his successful strike at the stranger.
The excessive volubility of the drivers
is marvellous They won't drive you
well unless you let them talk. They
get sulky directly and make it up by ex-
ira charges. They are much better-na-
tured to each other than the English
cabbies. The first night [ was out my
driver ran the shafts of his car full tilt
into the back of another car. I thought
for a moment that he would take the
back of the head car off, But he backed
his horse off, and when the driver he
had run into looked angrily back at him
he said: ''Look ahead of you, my boy.
Never look behind when you are driv
ing" And with this he swung ont to
the right and passed his friends wheel
by about quarter of an inch, going on
the dead bolt down Sackville street. The
aggrieved fellow grinned at the assur-
ance of his associate and stopped look
ing behind.
The last man [ had continually called
my attention to the beautiful black
Irish mare attached to his car.
He told me she could make ten miles
an hour day in and day out for years.
He would let her go for sixty guineas.
[ pretended to misunderstood him and
said l did not think she was worth six
guineas. This made my driver indig-
nant, and he spent the next fifteen or
twenty minutes in trying to tip me off,
by whirling suddenly around corners,
or spinning his car along on one wheel
down some dark street or slippery lane.
But yet on the whole they were so much
more interesting and amusing than the
English cabbies, because they met every
possible situation with such wit and
with such assurance. On recent after
noon 7 asked one ear driver how much
he would charge to drive me out to the
horse show and back, about a mile dis
tant. He promptly responded, half a
gainea, without blink The next man
was ready to go for two shillings. This
extraordinary drop did not discompose
the first driver. He stepped forward rs
if I were going with him as a matter of
course, saying in the most contemptu-
GUS way, in speaking of the two-shilling
man, "He will not be able to give you
such drive as I will" AS 1 was not
engaged at that particular time in buy
ing any fanciful kind of superior Irish
driving at high class figure, [ went
with the two-shilling man" ~. G.
Crawford.